Today’s Election News Roundup

Ill. Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign announced yesterday that it raised a record-amount of money for any campaign in the time span of a month, reporting $66 million for August. However, “Even with the impressive August fund-raising, the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee appear to have started September with slightly less at their disposal than Mr. McCain and the Republican National Committee for the general election sprint.”

Today, vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden will deliver his “Bush 44” speech in Michigan, in which he will stress that a McCain presidency will simply further the policies of the Bush administration. According to Politico, “The speech is touted as matching the aggressive new strategy the Obama campaign has promised to unleash in the remaining days of the campaign to counter the recent poll gains of McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.”

Both candidates commented on the Wall Street meltdown after news surfaced that Lehman Brothers was “filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy while titan Merill Lynch was being bought by Bank of America,” NPR reports. The Obama campaign released a statement blaming the Bush administration’s policies and calling the situation “the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression.” In a statement, Sen. McCain said that the crisis points to “the outdated and ineffective patchwork quilt of regulatory oversight in Washington.”

On Sunday, McCain attended a NASCAR race in New Hampshire, an event usually popular in the South. The appearance allowed McCain to spend some “time in a state where Democrat Barack Obama has opened a lead, while simultaneously prospecting in a different region he is counting to be part of his election day base,” according to the Associated Press.

Sen. Obama said today that his campaign ad questioning McCain’s ability to use a computer was not an attack at the Arizona senator’s age. On “Good Morning America” Obama said, “I didn’t say that. What I said was … that John McCain is out of touch.”

Daily coverage of the 2008 Election is gathered from media sources across the political spectrum and presented by Real Clear Politics to provide up-to-the-minute coverage. The site publishes daily political transcripts, including addresses on the campaign trail and withdrawal speeches. It also constantly updates and compares polling reports from Rasmussen, Gallup, CNN, Pew Research, and other major media sources. Additionally, the site provides a 2008 Primary Delegate Count, which presents the delegate counts of each candidate.

NPR provides an interactive calendar of past primaries. Headline stories that detail the events of the primaries and campaigns accompany the primary map. In addition, NPR hosts a “National Delegates Total,” with an ongoing count of delegates won by each candidate.